Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/483

Rh in 1825, where the Sioux and Ojibways smoked together. At that time a Sioux warrior proposed to exchange clothing with him, and after they had made the change the Sioux looking him in the face, and pointing to the headdress, archly said: "Brother, when you put that dress on, feel up there, there are five feathers, I have put one in for each scalp I took from your people, remember that."

Okeenakeequid was employed to make a birch canoe, and McKenney graphically describes the process of construction. "The ground being laid off in length and breadth answering to the size of the canoe (thirty-six feet long and five wide), stakes are driven at the two extremes, and thence, on either side, answering in their position, to the form of a canoe. Pieces of bark are then sown together with wattap (the root of the red cedar or fir), and placed between those stakes, from one end to the other, and made fast to them. The bark thus arranged hangs loose, and in folds, resembling in general appearance, though without their regularity, the covers of a book, with its back downwards, the edges being up, and the leaves out. Cross pieces are then put in. These press out the rim, and give the upper edges the form of the canoe. Upon these ribs, and along their whole extent, large stones are placed. The ribs having been previously well soaked, they bear the pressure of these stones, till they became dry. Passing around the bottom, and up the sides of the canoe to the rim, they resemble hoops cut in two, or half circles. The upper parts furnish mortising places for the rim; around and over which, and through the bark, the wattap is wrapped. The stakes are then removed, the seams gummed, and the fabric is lifted into the water, where it floats like a feather."